When Lu Ji was six years old, he traveled with his father to visit the Chief Minister of Nan Yang. The minister ordered his servants to bring a dish of oranges to offer to the young boy. Lu Ji secreted the fruit away in the sleeve of his robe. When...

Choko and Chorei were two brothers who looked after their aged mother. One day Choko was bringing a cabbage home for their mother when he was set upon by robbers. Finding he had nothing to give them, they had decided to kill him but agreed to wait...

Minamoto Yoshitsune's story is the subject of many stories and plays which treat him as an archetype of doomed valor. The brother of Minamoto Yoritomo, who founded the shogunate, Yoshitsune was placed in a monastery after his father's death in an...

An image of a woman holding a severed head. The beautiful but evil woman who ruined a nation by seducing its ruler away from his duties was a familiar subject during certain periods of Chinese and Japanese history. In the popular imagination, the...

In the 3rd month of the year, special tea ceremonies were held in the Inner Palace when guests and hosts played sophisticated games, such as guessing which types of tea were being served, or exchanged roles. In mawaribana guests took turns...

In the autumn fashionable geisha would dress in their lover's garments to visit the neighborhood shrine and participate in Niwaka kyogen, impromptu skits about life in the brothels. Dressed like an elegant young man, a young lady glances up at a...

The emperor and court ladies stand between two fountains that flank the entry into the Ueno Park compound housing the Second National Industrial Exhibition that was open to the public from 01 March to 30 June 1881. Such fairs followed European and...

In China and Japan, the constellations Vega and Altair are called the Weaver Maiden and the Herdsman. Legend says that after Shokiyo, the Weaver Maiden, fell in love with and married Kengi, the Herdsman, she became distracted and failed in her duty...

Taira-no-Masakado (903?-940) was a warlord who rebelled against the Kioto government of the Fujiwara Shoguns. In the 930s he seized eight provinces and founded a court at Sashima, calling himself Heishin No (Taira Prince). Masakado was defeated and...

One night, as Tadamori sat with the Emperor, they received a report that a monster--a figure with spikes growing out of its head and a flaming mouth--was on the road leading to the temple of Yasaka no Yashiro, and that it had been seen on the road...

Ota Dokan approached an inn on a rainy day to request the loan of a rain coat. Instead, the maid brought him a Yamabuki flower on a tray. Her meaning was expressed by the poem "Although having many petals the Yamabuki, to our regret, has no seed."...

Watanabe no Tsuna, a Heian retainer of Minamoto no Yorimitsu, accepted a dare to keep vigil at the Rasho Gate, reputed to be haunted by demons. He took up a post at the gate, and in the darkness, he was attacked by the demon--an oni. Drawing his...

Back to back print. A man in a blue kimono and hakama stands and reaches for his sword at his side, while a woman in voluminous robes lies at his feet on the ground.
Kusunoki Masatsura (1326-1348) was one of those samurai doomed to a brief life...

Back to back print. A withered man in tattered robes, with a deadened look on his face, sits in a chair with a candle on his head; he is viewed with shock by a younger man.
In late 6th - early 7th centuries, Japan sent several embassies to China to...